


A Little Bit Gay

by bloodstonepentagram



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Bisexuality, First Kiss, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 09:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10919250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodstonepentagram/pseuds/bloodstonepentagram
Summary: Mort and Teddy get drunk and kiss, leaving them with some stuff to figure out.





	A Little Bit Gay

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone else even ship this besides me? They're so much fun. Hopefully I'll write more stuff about them in the future, but for now I just needed there to be SOME content for them out there in the world.

Mort and Teddy were practically falling over each other drunk as they stumbled out onto the sidewalk, chemically rendered temporarily insensible to the salty ocean chill in the night air.

Teddy was bawling, like he did sometimes. He had a lot of feelings. Mort had always loved that about Teddy, loved that he was so soft and open and loved so easily. Unfortunately, that was also what made Teddy so fragile.

“Hey, it’ll be alright,” Mort slurred, patting Teddy on the back and nearly losing his balance in the process.

“No, it won’t,” Teddy said through heaving sobs. “No one’s ever gonna go out with me. I’m gonna be alone forever.”

Mort didn’t usually think of himself as a violent person, but if he saw the women from that singles mixer right now he thought that he would give them a very stern glare.

“Don’t say that, Teddy,” he said. “You’re a great guy. Anyone would be lucky to date you.”

Teddy’s crying was gradually winding down to a sniffle. “You’re just saying that.”

“No!” Mort shook his head so fiercely that he almost knocked them both off balance again. “No, really, Teddy, I mean it. You’re a catch. You’re really nice, you’re,” he stumbled on the sidewalk and grabbed Teddy’s arm to steady himself, “really strong, wow, you can- you can fix stuff…”

He was starting to lose his drink-muddled train of thought, which had been caught up somewhere in Teddy’s strong arms. Not like that, but- Well, a little bit like that. What was he saying again?

“-nice of you to say, but-“

Oh, yeah, that.

Expending considerable effort, Mort stopped walking, swinging Teddy around to face him. Given how the night had been going so far, it was honestly a miracle that they were both still upright when they came to a standstill. Mort felt a little like he might throw up, but he was determined to say his piece.

“Listen to me, Teddy,” Mort said urgently, squashing Teddy’s cheeks between his hands to maintain eye contact. “You are a great friend and you would- will make someone a great boyfriend. You hear me?”

“Okay, but-“

“No! No buts! You. Are. A. Catch.” Mort leaned in close, all fired up for a big speech. He leaned a little too close. He was way, way too close, and his lips were on Teddy’s, and they were kissing.

This is nice, thought Mort, while somewhere in the back of his mind his normal, sober brain was screaming at him. _What are you doing? Stop! Stop it right now!_

They were kissing, and then they weren’t, the motions involved were too abstract for Mort to fully wrap his head around. It wasn’t until he had backed up a step and looked at Teddy, red-faced and quiet, that he realized what he’d done.

He wished he had just thrown up instead.

“I…” He trailed off, unable to think of anything he could say that would help the situation. He was dizzy. He needed to sit down. “Sorry, Teddy, I-“

“I’ve gotta go,” said Teddy. He began to dash off in a stumbling run, then he stopped, calling from halfway down the block, “Wait, can you get home okay?”

Mort, caught completely off guard, didn’t even know what to say to that.

“You know what? I’ll call you a cab,” Teddy yelled. Giving Mort a thumbs up, he fumbled his phone out of his pocket and then kept running.

Mort thought that Teddy was really the one to worry about, if he was going to try to run in this state, but he wasn’t about to go after him, not after…that.

He didn’t know if Teddy was actually going to successfully call that cab for him, but he wasn’t going to sit around on this street waiting to find out. He took a second to get his bearings and then trudged off in the direction of home. At least when he fell asleep he could forget about what just happened for a few hours.

***

Teddy felt like a criminal as he slunk into Bob’s restaurant the next morning, still hungover and craving a burger and fries more than he thought he ever had, which was saying something.

“What’s up with you today?” Bob asked, looking up from wiping a counter that Teddy thought probably didn’t need to be wiped any more.

“Uh, nothing,” Teddy said. Perfect, extremely convincing. “Have, uh, you seen Mort around today?”

“No, why?” Did Bob sound suspicious? Was he suspicious right now? Teddy suddenly felt warm.

“No, uh, reason,” Teddy said. Oh, god, he was freaking out. He was totally freaking out right now.

“Okay,” said Bob.

“Alright!” Teddy said, throwing his arms up in defeat. “You saw through me, Bob! You broke me down.”

“I- uh, okay.”

“Me and Mort kissed last night.”

“Uh, oh. Okay.”

“No, Bob! It’s not okay! I’m not gay, Bob. I can’t lead him on like this.”

Bob was silent for a long time, leaving Teddy, stewing in his own sweat, to wonder what horrible things he must be thinking about Teddy right now. Teddy had messed up; he was a bad friend; he was playing games with people and someone was gonna get hurt. He could feel his chest getting tighter. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, trying to induce some airflow.

Bob’s next words seemed like they were coming to Teddy from a long distance. “Then, why did you kiss him?”

“I know, I know,” Teddy said, shrinking in his seat. “I couldn’t help it. We were drunk, and I was thinking about how I was really lonely, and he leaned close to me and his lips looked really soft, and then it just sort of…”

“Teddy,” said Bob slowly, “are you sure you’re not…just a little bit gay?”

“No,” Teddy said with a little sigh. “No, I like women, Bob.”

“Yeah, but, do you maybe…like men too?”

“What?” said Teddy, totally caught off guard. “Nah. I mean, I don’t… No? I don’t think so.”

“Well, you wanted to kiss Mort,” Bob said. “Have you ever wanted to kiss any other men?”

“I mean, yeah,” said Teddy, “but you know, not in a gay way, just, like, you know, to show affection for your close guy friends. Everyone does that.”

“No,” Bob said. “No, Teddy, everyone doesn’t do that.”

“Oh.”

Teddy thought for a little bit. There had been that time in high school that his buddy had scored a goal and Teddy’s celebration hug had gotten a little too enthusiastic for the guys. And that time when Teddy had asked his friend to the junior high dance, just as friends, but his friend had assumed he asked as a joke, and Teddy played along even though he wasn’t really joking. And that time he’d got kinda tipsy at that boat party and-

“Bob,” said Teddy, “I think I might be a little bit gay.”

“Really,” said Bob.

***

Mort woke up with a raging headache, half disappointed that he hadn’t died in his sleep. When he couldn’t take the sound of his alarm anymore, he stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, every step reminding him that he was too old now to go crazy like that. 

Okay, damage control, on last night’s incident. Best case scenario, Teddy didn’t remember what happened last night. Teddy had seemed pretty far gone, so that wasn’t completely impossible.Worst case scenario, Teddy did remember, he hated Mort now, he was gonna come by and trash his place and drive away all his customers and make Mort have to move…which, Mort had to admit, was a little melodramatic. Teddy was a good guy, even if he was a little prone to overreaction. He wouldn’t be like that. 

More likely, things would just…be awkward between them, forever. Eventually they would hang out less and less, and then they wouldn’t talk to each other anymore, and all Mort’s friends would leave and he’d just stay inside his house forever until eventually someone came looking for him and found him dead on the floor like Mr. Rothschild last year.

This was why he had told himself he was done with men. And he’d done so well at staying away, for entire decades. And then last night he got a little drunk, and look what happened.

He took a shower, letting the hot steam seep into his muscles. He got dressed, buttoning his shirt wrong the first time, starting over, getting it wrong again and then just giving up and letting it stay askew. He put on his hairpiece, but he didn’t even bother checking in a mirror to make sure it was on right.

In the kitchen, Mort watched coffee drip from the filter, wishing that the roof would cave in on him. His head hurt, his entire body hurt, while he was at it, and he didn’t want to talk to or even see another living person ever again.

Luckily, he had a couple of dead people he could spend time with while he at least got through this hangover.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, took a few sips. Then he checked his phone.

There were five messages from Teddy, the first two from last night, the latest from an hour ago. Mort swore and dropped the phone. He couldn’t deal with this right now. He couldn’t.

He took the coffee downstairs with him. He could bury himself in his work for a few hours (pardon the pun), if only until he got his head back on straight (ha).

As he made his way downstairs, though, he he heard a knock on the door and groaned. Was it Teddy? It had to be Teddy, right? Couldn’t he just not answer?

But what if it wasn’t Teddy? That was the problem with working from home. It was impossible to tell sometimes whether someone was at the door for business or personal reasons.

Mort crept up to the door and leaned in to look through the peephole. If it turned out to be Teddy, he could still just turn around and pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

Distorted in the glass he saw Teddy, eyes and nose stretched unnaturally large as he tried to look through the glass on his side, which Mort was pretty sure wouldn’t even work but still made him nervous. He was all set to turn around, when Teddy rocked back on his heels a little bit and Mort saw something bright yellow in his hand. Was that a bouquet? Bouquet would maybe be dignifying it, it looked kind of bedraggled. Half the flowers were bent, and a lot of them still had roots hanging off of them. Actually, now that Mort thought about it, they looked a lot like the flowers that had been growing in the flower boxes down the street.

Mort heaved a deep sigh and opened the door.

Teddy started when it opened.

“Sorry,” said Mort reflexively at the same time that Teddy said, “Sorry!”

Mort coughed. Teddy coughed. The world held its breath for a second.

“So,” said Teddy, “how’s it going?”

“Um, good,” said Mort, suddenly remembering what his hair and shirt looked like and wishing the floor would swallow him.

“Good,” said Teddy, clearly uncomfortable. Answering the door had clearly been a mistake, and Mort wished there was an easy way to end the conversation now. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything short of saying that his oven was on fire, and how that he thought about it, Teddy’s first instinct would probably be to rush in to put it out, which wouldn’t really help things.

“Listen,” said Teddy, “there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

There was no escape, was there?

“Okay,” Mort said. He wondered whether he should invite Teddy in, but Teddy didn’t make a move to enter, so Mort just stayed where he was.

Teddy, despite being the one who had started the conversation, didn’t seem to know what to say next. He hemmed and hawed for a minute. “We…kissed last night.”

Mort’s stomach dropped. “Yeah,” he managed to say through a mouth that suddenly felt very dry.

“Yeah,” said Teddy. “So, you know, I never thought of myself as gay.”

Here it was. Mort braced himself for a conversation he hadn’t had since he was in his twenties, sure it wouldn’t be any more fun now than it was last time.

“Then I was talking to Bob about it-“

“You told Bob?” Mort said in a tone that may have come across a little more hysterical than he’d really intended.

“Oh, god, should I not have told Bob?” Teddy asked, alarmed. “I’m sorry! I just, you know, I tell Bob everything, and-“

“It’s alright,” Mort said with a sigh. The damage was done, anyway.

“So, anyway,” Teddy said, “I talked to Bob and it turns out that I’m more gay than I thought I was.”

Mort started to nod, then took in what Teddy was saying and stopped, confused.

“And, you know, last night wasn’t too bad, and, um…” In a jerky motion Teddy held out the crumpled bunch of flowers. “Do you want to go out again, sometime? You know, like, a date?”

While Mort waited for his brain to catch up to what was happening, his free hand instinctively reached out to accept the flowers. He looked down at them blankly.

“Did you get these from someone’s window box?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Teddy shuffled his feet. “I was on my way here, and I thought maybe I shouldn’t come empty-handed, and then I just kinda, uh, panicked.”

Mort surprised himself by laughing. “Maybe we should take these inside before somebody sees them.”

“Oh, somebody saw me taking them,” Teddy said. “I got chased halfway down the street before she gave up.”

“Oh. Come in quick, then.” Mort stepped into the house. “Close the door? My hands are full.”

Mort walked upstairs, followed, after some hesitation, by Teddy. He set the coffee down, filled a glass of water for the flowers, and looked at his reflection in a spoon long enough to adjust his wig and fix a couple shirt buttons.

Feeling a little more put together, he turned to face Teddy, who was standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway.

“I was worried you were gonna freak out,” Mort admitted.

“Oh, I mean, I did, a little bit,” Teddy said. “But to be honest I was worried _you_ were gonna freak out.”

Mort laughed again. “I guess I did a little bit, too.”

“You know,” Teddy said, fidgeting with his hands, “you never gave me an answer.”

“Oh,” said Mort. Was this really happening? Was this actually working out…okay for him?

He tested it. He closed the gap between him and Teddy, pulse pounding, headache mostly forgotten. He put a hand on Teddy’s arm, watching Teddy’s face for a reaction. Teddy made no sign either way; he seemed too nervous to move. Mort slowly put his other hand on Teddy’s chest. It was broad and warm. If Mort concentrated he could feel Teddy’s heartbeat faintly.

Teddy’s breath caught in his throat and Mort was worried for a second. He started to withdraw, but Teddy’s hand caught his wrist.

Reassured, Mort leaned back in. “Yes,” he said. “I would love to.”


End file.
